Out of a cornfield eden at the northern tip of Lake Winnebago comes Wisconsin’s Dusk, a unique country rock ’n’ roll group that blends their rural roots and love for 60s and 70s soul. Formed in 2014, the band has been a favorite of midwest and east coast stages, sharing bills and tours with the likes of Sheer Mag, Screaming Females, and Reigning Sound.
Dusk (whose line-up includes Amos Pitsch of Tenement) have announced new album “Glass Pastures”, due October 20th via Don Giovanni. Lead single “Pissing In A Wishing Well” is a dose of punky, ragged alt-country.
The outfit is six strong, each a song-er, sing-er, and multi-instrumentalist in their own right. Julia Blair’s tender howl floats atop the flurry of voices, fingers mincing the keys of her Wurlitzer piano. Ryley Crowe works the pedal steel guitar, gracefully gliding across the bandscape like a horse on ice. Tyler Ditter grips his electric guitar as a knight his sword, falling any vine or villain in his path. Bill Grasley is second-to-none guitar, an intelligent player who can kick back or blast off, his drape of hair prepared for either. Behind the kit is Amos Pitsch, whose hands draw melody from each drum like tufts pulled from carnival cotton candy. Ridley Tankersley is there too with a bass guitar, scrounging up the loose change from the green room couch.
Their newest LP “Glass Pastures,” the group’s first since 2017’s full-length debut “Dusk”, is not only a museum of earworms, but a crusade in the name of love and truth. Produced between 2020-2022 in the various rooms of the band’s recording studio, Crutch of Memory, a mid-century castle in the heart of Appleton, Wisconsin, the album showcases a range of writing and vocal talents. Therein is Dusk’s force– its spirit– the breadth of voice unified and concentrated like a beam of light on a ruby velvet curtain.
The Pretenders have announced a rare U.S. headlining club tour for this summer to fill in dates in between their opening slot on Guns N’ Roses’ 2023 stadium tour. Limited tickets for the nine intimate shows go on sale on July 21st .
The band have also shared a pair of songs from their new studio album, “Relentless”, coming September 1st, via Rhino Records. The album marks the band’s return to Warner Music Group after more than two decades having first been signed to Sire Records in America by the legendary Seymour Stein. The original album announcement, coincided with the release of the first single, “Let the Sun Come In,” featuring Chrissie Hynde’s usual tough-as-nails vocal. The band completed a tour of the U.K., Ireland and Europe in mid-July, that included a performance at BST Hyde Park in London.
“I enjoy seeing the various meanings and origins of a word,” says Hynde of the album’s title. “And I liked the definition: ‘showing no abatement of intensity.’ So when it came to an album title, it seemed fitting. You know…to keep doing it. I think anyone in a band is constantly questioning if they should keep going. It starts as a youthful pursuit and eventually, it makes you wonder, why am I doing this? It’s the life of the artist. You never retire. You become relentless.”
More from the announcement: Produced by multiple Grammy Award-nominee David Wrench (Courtney Barnett, David Byrne) at the famed Battery Studios in Willesden, North West London, “Relentless” marks the second consecutive full-length songwriting collaboration by Hynde and Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne following 2020’s acclaimed “Hate For Sale”.
The two are joined on the album’s twelve tracks by what Hynde has dubbed “The Pretenders Collective,” including Kris Sonne (drums), Chris Hill (double bass), Dave Page (bass), and Carwyn Ellis (keyboards and guitars). In addition, “Relentless” features a landmark collaboration with Academy Award-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead, The Smile), who provides the string arrangement and conducted the 12 Ensemble for the album’s closing track, “I Think About You Daily,”.
“I met Jonny a couple of times and we’re obviously big fans of him because he’s done some incredible music over the years,” Hynde says. “I saw him at the Phantom Thread premiere where the film was running on screen with a live orchestra playing. And we spoke afterward and he expressed an interest in doing something one day. I was thrilled and very surprised. So when we had the idea of getting strings on ‘I Think About You Daily,’ he was first choice. Legend!”
The Mountain Goats have announced a new album. Arriving October 27th via Merge Records, “Jenny From Thebes” marks the sequel to the band’s 2002 LP “All Hail West Texas”. Ahead of their new record, the Mountain Goats have release lead single “Clean Slate.” As frontman John Darnielle explains it, “JennyFrom Thebes” is a rock opera about a woman who buys a Kawasaki to ride as far away as possible from a town that she’s been carrying on her shoulders for too long. “‘Clean Slate’ sets the scene: This is the house Jenny rents; these are the people who crash there when they need a place to stay; this is where she’s at in the process of becoming someone other than the keyholder she’s been,” he said in a press release.
Produced by Trina Shoemaker and recorded at the Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Jenny From Thebes” features guitar by Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, horn and string arrangements by Matt Douglas, and backing vocals from Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Matt Nathanson.
The new LP follows the Mountain Goats’ 2022 album, “Bleed Out”, which was produced by Bognanno and drew inspiration from action flicks from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Darnielle described the tracks on that record as “uptempo mini-action movies” that were filled with their own “plots, characters, heists, hostages, questionable capers, getaway cars, all that stuff.”
Since releasing “Bleed Out”, Darnielle showed up in Natasha Lyonne and Rian Johnson’s crime comedy Poker Face, where he played a guitarist for a one-hit-wonder rock band called Doxxxology. The band is fronted by a character named Ruby Ruin—played by Chloë Sevigny.
“Clean Slate” by the Mountain Goats, off the album, “Jenny from Thebes”, out October 27th on Merge Records.
Hurry is an American indie rock band formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2012. The band is composed of Matt Scottoline (vocals, guitar), Joe DeCarolis (bass), Rob DeCarolis (drums), and Justin Fox (guitar).
Hurry began as a solo project for principal songwriter Matt Scottoline, bassist of emo revival band Everyone Everywhere. He wrote the first ten to twenty Hurry songs as a way to write his own material and play guitar rather than bass. Scottoline decided to release his home recordings on Bandcamp under the moniker “Hurry,” chosen as a self-deprecating joke about his writing process; he writes quickly and rarely finishes a song if it is not completed in a single session. After releasing the demos, Scottoline recruited other musicians to perform the songs live, including Everyone Everywhere guitarist Brendan McHugh and Univox bassist Rob DeCarolis on drums.
Hurry coalesced into a trio, adding DeCarolis’s cousin and Psychic Teens/Exmaid bassist Joe DeCarolis to round out the lineup. Hey everyone! Wanted to drop a line to say we’ve just released the second single from the new album “Don’t Look Back”
It’s called “Parallel Haunting,” and you can stream it right now on bandcamp,
releases August 11th, 2023
Matt Scottoline: Vocals, Guitar Rob DeCarolis: Drums Joe DeCarolis: Bass Justin Fox: Lead Guitar Zack Robbins: Aux Percussion Ben Grigg: Trumpet Logan Bloom: Trombone
With a Cure album eagerly awaited, Nick Cave in the studio and our cover star Siouxsie on a European tour, the time is right for us to present the Ultimate Genre Guide to Goth. Reviews and interviews with the legends of goth. Goth film. Goth in America. 50 goth disco classics. The full story of what happened when post punk went dark.
Less than an hour south of Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, sits the Indiana Dunes, a protected expanse of shoreline recently designated a National Park. When Ella Williams first visited the Dunes, she was awed by the juxtaposition of its natural splendor within a surrounding industrial corridor. “Every time I go there, it changes my life,” she says, without a hint of hyperbole.“You stand in the marshlands and to your left is a steel factory belching fire and to your right is a nuclear power plant.” Across the water, Chicago waits, its glistening towers made possible by the same steel born here. Similarly, for as long as she’s been making music, Ella Williams’ songs have been products of the environments they’re written in, born out of the same world they so vividly hold a mirror to. This environment is where her magnetic new album, “Tomorrow’s Fire”, lives.
The music Williams makes as Squirrel Flower has always communicated a strong sense of place. Her self-released debut EP, 2015’s early winter songs from middle america, was written during her first year living in Iowa, where the winter months make those of her hometown, Boston, seem quaint by comparison. Since that first offering, Squirrel Flower amassed a fanbase beyond the Boston DIY scene and has released two more EPs and two full-lengths. The most recent, “Planet (i)”, was laden with climate anxiety, while the subsequent “Planet” EP marked an important turning point in Williams’ prolific career; the collection of demos was the first self-produced material she’d released in some time. With a renewed confidence as a producer, she helmed “Tomorrow’s Fire” at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville alongside storied engineer Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo de Souza, Snail Mail). Williams and Farrar tracked many of the instruments, building the songs together during the first week, and then assembled a studio band that included Matt McCaughan (Bon Iver), Seth Kauffman (Angel Olsen band), Jake Lenderman (aka MJ Lenderman), and Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs) lending their contributions.
Before “Tomorrow’s Fire”, Squirrel Flower might’ve been labelled something like “indie folk,” but this is a rock record, made to be played loud. As if to signal this shift, the album opens with the soaring “i don’t use a trashcan,” a re-imagining of the first ever Squirrel Flower song. Williams returns to her past to demonstrate her growth as an artist and to nod to those early shows, when her voice, looped and minimalistic, had the power to silence a room. Lead singles “Full Time Job” and “When a Plant is Dying,” narrate the universal desperation that comes with living as an artist and pushing up against a world where that’s a challenging thing to be. The frustration in Williams’ lyrics is echoed by the music’s uninhibited, ferocious production.
“There must be more to life/ Than being on time,” she sings on the latter’s towering chorus. Lyrics like that one are fated to become anthemic, and “Tomorrow’s Fire” overflows with them. “Doing my best is a full time job/ But it doesn’t pay the rent” Williams sings on “Full Time Job” over careening feedback, her steady delivery imposing order over a song that is, at its heart, about a loss of control.
Williams cites artists like Jason Molina, Tom Waits, and Springsteen as fonts of inspiration for “Tomorrow’s Fire”, musicians who knew how to write into the mind of a stranger, who could tell you the story of a life in under four minutes. “The songs I write are not always autobiographical, but they’re always true,” Williams says. Nowhere is Springsteen heard more clearly than on “Alley Light,” an electrifying song narrated from the perspective of a down-on-his-luck guy whose car is fated to die any day now and whose girl just wants to escape. There’s a vintage sheen to it, but “Alley Light” captures the very familiar feelings of loss that come with living in a 21st century city, where you blink and the storefronts change. Williams notes, “It’s about a man in me, or a man who I love, or even a man who is a stranger to me.”
The album glides effortlessly over emotional states of being, lightness and heaviness. “Intheskatepark,” written in the summer of 2019, four years later sounds like a dispatch from a bygone world. The scuzzy pop production nods to Guided By Voices, as Williams sings about being carefree, crushing under summer sunshine. “I had a light,” Williams repeats mournfully on “Stick,” her voice at once aching and powerful, a sense of rage fermenting as the song goes on, until it explodes in the second half. “This song is about not wanting to compromise, just being at the end of your rope,” Williams says. “Stick” harnesses that exasperation and turns it into a battle cry for anyone who is exhausted but feels like they’re not working hard enough, who had to get a job they hate to make rent, who lost their light and can’t seem to find it again.
“Tomorrow’s Fire” might sound like the title of an apocalypse album, but it’s not. “Tomorrow’s Fire” references the title of a novel Williams’ great-grandfather Jay wrote about a troubadour, named for a line by the Medieval French poet Rutebeuf, a troubadour himself: “Tomorrow’s hopes provide my dinner/ Tomorrow’s fire must warm tonight.” Centuries on, the quote spoke to Williams, who describes the fire as a tool to wield in the face of nihilism. “Tomorrow’s Fire” is what we take solace in, what we know will make us feel okay in the morning, how we light the path we’re walking on.
Closing track “Finally Rain” speaks to the ambiguity of being a young person, knowing the earth has an expiration date. The last verse is an homage to her relationship with her loved ones — ‘We won’t grow up.’ A stark realization, but also a manifesto. To be resolutely committed to a life of not ‘growing up,’ not losing our wonder, our sense of expression, and our love while we’re still here.
Big Thief present new single, “Vampire Empire”, off their forthcoming ‘Vampire Empire’ / ‘Born For Loving You’ 7” vinyl release due out on 20th October. This year, the song took on a life of its own after a performance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and has become a live fan favourite.
Critically-acclaimed band Big Thief performs a new, unreleased song, “Vampire Empire,” exclusively for The Late Show.
The studio version recorded and produced by Dom Monks at Guissona, Spain’s Teatre de cal Eril Studio during a recent tour, ‘Vampire Empire’ speaks to the beautiful complexity of gender identity and breaking destructive internal cycles.
Of the song, Adrianne Lenker adds, “For me, it’s about getting out of toxic internal patterns – leaving the empire of energy drains that obscure pure essence, learning about what healthy boundaries are, and finding the power to implement them for the possibility of giving and receiving (both inwardly and outwardly) unbroken and infinite Love.”
It has been announced that The Who will be releasing a massive music catalogue consisting of 10 CDs and 1 Blu-ray on September 15th. The catalogue, titled “Who’s Next/Life House Super Deluxe Edition”, will feature 155 tracks. The Who may have released many extensive catalogue’s throughout their career, but never as massive as this. Of the tracks on The Who‘s upcoming set, 89 have never been released before. “Who’s Next/Life House Super Deluxe Edition”will also feature spatial audio and surround mixes.
Out of the 10 CDs, two of them hold the title “Pete Townshend’s Life House Demos 1970-1971”.
One of the discs serves as an album of outtakes from the Record Plant sessions in 1971. Other discs include two full of alternate mixes, as well as CDs containing full live performances from concerts at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco and Young Vic in London.
All of the discs inside of the set will be accompanied by a 100-page hardback book. That hardback will feature an introduction from Townshend and essays written by The Who enthusiasts Neil and Matt Kent. The box set will also contain “Life House – The Graphic Novel,” which is 170 pages and serves as a comic book that tells the origin story of the band. Also included in the set are replicas of gig posters, concert programs, and autographs.
A recent press statement regarding Pete Townshend’s work on “Life House”describes the music as “an extraordinary vision of a world beset by climatic catastrophe and pollution, leading to a curtailing of personal freedom that will be all too familiar to the pandemic generation. Decades ahead of his time, he details how the population is then seduced and sedated by access to an entertainment ‘Grid,’ piped into every home via the use of virtual reality experience suits.”
In his own introduction, Townshend calls “Life House”, “a portentous polemic about the coming of a nation beaten down by climate issues and pollution” that allows “an opportunist and autocratic government (to) enforce a national lock-down in which every person is hooked up to an entertainment grid.”
One of rock’s last great untold stories is finally about to be recounted in full. “Who’s Next | Life House” coming September 15th. Reissued on stunning new formats, “Who’s Next | Life House” is available as a special Super Deluxe Edition, alongside LP and CD formats.
“Bubblegum” and “Stop Waiting” are the latest pair of singles from Cigarettes After Sex, and their first new music of 2023. The double single will be released on Tuesday July 18th. Syrupy, sensual, subterranean dream-pop is set against vocals from bandleader Greg Gonzalez that walk the subtle line between croon and whisper. The songs are a perfect distillation of the starry-eyed atmosphere that the band has claimed as their signature in the six years since the release of their globally successful self-titled debut.
Behind billions of streams and over 17M monthly listeners on Spotify, Cigarettes After Sex continue to defy what it means to be one of the biggest cult bands in the world.
Bat Fangs, the duo of guitarist/vocalist Betsy Wright (Ex Hex) and drummer Laura King (of Speed Stick and Mac McCaughan’s band), have shared another track from their upcoming sophomore album, “Queen of My World”. It’s another big riff monster, “Action” references the Flamin’ Groovies and also contains massive “whoas” right out of Def Leppard’s Hysteria.
Born of a shared love of hair metal, partying, and the reckless spirit of rock and roll, Washington D.C./ Carborro, NC duo Bat Fangs brings a fiery combination of shredderistic guitars and heavily harmonized hooks. Guitarist/vocalist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura King united after playing a show together in their respective projects, with the goal of pushing Wright’s pop focused song writing in a bolder, brasher direction. Taking up the primary song writing role and shifting to guitar, Wright steps outside of the typical Ex Hex sound with Bat Fangs’ rowdy rock.
Their sophomore LP, “Queen of My World” is a reeling, rocking mass of guitar and vocals that serves as both a reclamation and a reevaluation of a sound that was once a breeding ground for a particularly egregious brand of cock rock dude-bro. Paying tribute to the glam rock and metal sounds of their youth while offering a modernized alternative to an era of music that deified toxic masculinity as a core value, Wright and King represent a new model of Rock Stardom that’s less about the Stars and more about the Rock.
On “Talk Tough”, the first song written for this LP, Wright sings of music carrying her into a near supernatural state, describing herself as being “in the cosmic sea”, and inviting others “crawl out the window on to a higher plain”. This otherworldliness permeates throughout the record, applying magical perspectives to real lived experiences.
Using musical nostalgia as it’s crystal ball, “Queen of My World” looks back through life’s little moments and sees the mystical within the ordinary. Though many of the songs are autobiographical, at its core the record is a lens into other worlds, gazing into timelines that could have been and childhood memories so distant they may as well be past lives.
One such reminiscion takes place on the title track, which reflects on a wild adolescence of drugs and destruction, with an aggressive guitar attack to match. Underneath the high octane teenage antics is a genuine tribute to the unique friendships that can only form in the pseudo-invincibility of youth.
As the record examines deeper into these alternate dimensions, it becomes increasingly psychedelic. The culmination of this is closing track “Into the Weave”, an instrumental jam that builds over a repeated tom groove into a full throttle barrage of guitar and drums. As it trails off, one last vocal harmony shines through, a sign that we’ve exited the mythical realm “Queen of My World” occupies, and moved on to the next.
The Fat Angel Sings 